Factors influencing the adoption of Information and Communication Technology in public service delivery in Nakuru district, Kenya

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Abstract

lCT adoption in both the public service delivery and the private sector is critical to global competitiveness in both the labor markets and the service industry today. Public participation as one of the pillars of adoption has suffered neglect in the various processes necessary for successful adoption of K'T as studies done so far in this area reveal. The present study sought to investigate this and the state of lCT readiness and other factors influencing the adoption of lCT in the public service delivery in Nakuru district, Kenya in depth.
The research design was descriptive survey and used questionnaires as its instruments. The research site was Nakuru town in Nakuru District which hosts a sizeable number of government departments, 44 in total. A randomly selected sample size of 196 civil servants was drawn from the 44 departments with a staff population of 668 located at the Rift valley Provincial headquarters. The unit of analysis consisted of the management and staff at various levels in these departments. The findings were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively and tabulated. 153 (78%) of the target sample respondents participated. The Adoption and Diffusion of technology theory of Rogers (1962) guided the study.
According to the findings there was near gender parity in the work placements in the Provincial headquarters where the study was conducted. Most of the respondents were middle aged (39%) and had post high school education extending to graduate levels. They also had over 11 years work experience in the civil service in various stations around the country, hence, could give a more valid account of the change of service delivery in the public service since the promulgation of the Public Service Reform Program of 2003 and the subsequent launch of the E-government initiative in 2004.
lCT readiness was observed in most departments in terms of trained personnel, however, there was still a big investment gap in terms of equipment and infrastructure and maintenance personnel needed to make the e-government initiative a complete success as intended. Service delivery had reportedly improved in many departments and the digitalization of government was still rated by most respondents as effective in combating corruption despite the high levels of anxiety posted over the vulnerability of the networks to fraudsters and, hence, the need to improve on the integrity of information management in the networks.
Digital divide remained an unresolved issue with most respondents arguing that the government was not within its rights to go online without first ensuring the ubiquity of ICT in most parts of the country. Finally there is need to invest significant proportion of the budget for research and development of lCT in the country in order to engender innovative lCT products that meets the technological needs of the country across all social strata and terrain and ensure product neutrality. These imply that digital government was both a necessity and,thus, needed constant monitoring to make it run objectively as envisioned at the beginning otherwise the implementation may unnecessarily suffer gross inefficiency that would encourage the mushrooming of old corruption networks.